All of my greatest Hornswoggle memories (besides watching an ROH show with him in Chicago when he was Shortstack) involve him being hit with things. A t-shirt gun in the groin by The Miz, a foot from Alberto Del Rio, a projectile garbage can and a cage wall by JBL. He was great back when he was an evil leprechaun and Finlay would throw him at folks. Any Hornswoggle memory NOT involving him being injured in some way is horrible. Remember him pinning Chavo on 378 consecutive episodes of Raw? Macauly Culkin cameo aside, it was literally an Orwellian Nightmare.

I only need so many “Bests” involving R-Truth per week, but Truth scaring him, only to hug him (with an emotional head touch), only to kick him in the face was the best. Hornswoggle, you’re the last Cruiserweight Champion ever and got to hug MILF Sunny chest-high. You’re living the dream, and I’m sorry I only like you when wrestling is sort-of simulating child abuse.

Worst: Two Break Disqualifications on the Same Night

Woof. Two matches on Raw ended with the worst finish in wrestling: a heel who won’t break the count at 5. That finish can f**k off forever. It happened first in the Alberto Del Rio versus Kane match, and sure, I can accept it there because it ends a Kane match in under three minutes. But to have it surface again in Christian versus Rey Mysterio (especially in the awkward, stunted way it resurfaced) is inexcusable. The referee should be professional enough to do the “come on break the hold” physical interjection thing after he counts five, and not just magically throw out the match. NBA refs should do that. LeBron pretends to get poked in the eye and falls down, so the ref steps in waving his arms yelling NOPE, NO MORE GAME, EVERYBODY GO HOME.

The worst part is that Christian/Mysterio (which was surprisingly not any good, not even a little bit) continued on after the call, with a New Nexus attack and Christian going for a bunch of firemans carry moves he never normally goes for. I think they made up for the conservative use of 619s in the Punk series by spending Monday night using them exclusively. Christian goes for a punch, but Mysterio moves slightly and Christian goes FLYING onto that second rope. Just terrible.

Best: Cody Rhodes Talking to Barack Obama

… with a supplementary “best” for the best use of The Great Khali so far. And I guess a supplementary “worst” for Khali being a funny joke immediately after being repackaged into an unstoppable death monster on Smackdown.

Cody’s super villain voice and Mr. Sinister jacket (with the diamond on the front and everything) never fail to amuse me, and he’s a major reason why I wish With Leather updated on Saturdays. Maybe I should start live blogging Smackdown, so you can hear my only joke about Ezekiel Jackson again (he loves bodyslams).

Join The Discussion

On the Ryder thing, I don’t understand why WWE does what they do when shows are in people’s hometowns. They’ll do anything they can to make those people look horrible. In fact, I’m fairly sure Jim Ross was forced to eat animal excrement on more than one occasion in Oklahoma.

Maybe they don’t believe in Ryder that much. Fine, but the crowd would have gone berzerk if he did something cool last night. And if the last few weeks of inexplicable Alex Riley reactions have taught me anything, it’s that crowds will copy previous awesome crowds. That guy was a complete turd for the last year, and now crowds have chanted his name for four straight weeks. It could have happened with Ryder.

But hey, if there wasn’t time for that, I’m glad I at least got to see Santino again. Then again, I’m a sucker for guys with four moves, including a finisher that makes Starship Pain look like a Steiner Screwdriver into a pit of spikes.

06.14.11 at 2:19 pm

Magic Johnson

Think you might have been distracted during Piper’s Pit. Hot Rod asked about saving Andre, Bundy & Mean Gene – No mention of Gorilla. Bummer to spend a section writing about something you misheard.

06.14.11 at 2:30 pm

Brandon

@Magic – Whoops, I guess so. But I can just sub Andre in, the joke is the same. Thanks for the heads up.

06.14.11 at 2:19 pm

Ragingape

Yeah at this point it seems like we are just wondering exactly how the WWE will miss the boat with Ryder. It sucks but I said before that maybe staying under the radar is what’s allowing Ryder to shine.

Evan Bourne also is around to take crazy bumps. You sort of mentioned it with the Swagger Bomb comment but it is essential to the man.

06.14.11 at 2:29 pm

Rusty

Got a HUGE smile on my face at the first worst and best. Hilarious.

06.14.11 at 2:31 pm

pig.josh

id vote for goldust main event too. but seriously we all should vote for zack ryder.
good thing all the heels were wearing black, i get confused who i should cheer for…
was layla the only diva not involved?

06.14.11 at 2:36 pm

Doctor Awesomus

As long as the publicly run company is essentially a shareholder-financed money laundering scheme for a steroid-bound geriatric sociopath who enjoys crapping in peoples’ mouths (figuratively, maybe literally, let’s ask HHH), the WWE will crap in peoples’ mouths. CUZ IT CANNNNNNN. Also Vince McMahon hates himself and everyone else.

Outstanding job as always!

06.14.11 at 2:56 pm

Rusty

Oh man, and totally with you on the FPR team reference and ESPECIALLY “that” match you laugh at when you see it on a DVD back 5 years later.

06.14.11 at 2:56 pm

PamsRack

Don’t get the guys hate for Morrison but his love for Cena. Cena is literally the worst multi-time champion in the WWF/E History.

Also, R-Truf is the best part of Raw now. and CM Punk is the fucking end of all things great.

06.14.11 at 3:09 pm

Rusty

Okay, triple post, but holy shit lol at the commercials thing because i see the general and dominoes and all that and uggghhhhh that pizza is NOT WORTH 16 DOLLARS YOU DORK

06.14.11 at 3:25 pm

Philip

Not watching and only viewing things on the internet it looks like R-Truth and Zack Ryder are their biggest stars. Maybe it’s better if you don’t watch?

06.14.11 at 3:28 pm

Simon

How quickly we forget Sweet Sapphire.

OK she got bought by Ted DiBiase but still.

06.14.11 at 3:32 pm

Brian G.

Mean Gene’s jacket in the bucket made me laugh a bit too much.

Zack Ryder doing headstand pushups into a bowl of gel to spike his hair is the best stupid thing I’ve ever seen. Keep getting paid to do that, Zack Ryder!

06.14.11 at 3:46 pm

Matthew H

I’ve wanted a frozen bottle of water to become a foreign object ever since that Buff Bagwell/Shane Helms incident ten years ago.

06.14.11 at 3:54 pm

SMBaublitz

They should have just devoted an hour to Punk and Austin. Like a USA original. Make it a cop show where they are partners. Ones a young man transferred to the city that knows all the rules, and the other one is a old guy who’s best years are waaaay behind him but still doesn’t like the rules. But enjoys abusing women.

06.14.11 at 4:07 pm

Dave

Another awesome article, and I’ll comment more when I have more time, but again, great stuff from start to finish, hilarious and insightful and usually completely accurate.

I think my favourite bit is either mocking the Power to the People concept or the fact that I haven’t seen Raw and just skimmed results elsewhere so this article alerted me to the fact that the show had a Punk/Austin confrontation. I would pay for a PPV to see that match alone.

..but yeah, these 3 hour shows never really accomplish a great deal do they?

More comments later.

06.14.11 at 4:52 pm

Vince

I just feel so bad for Zack Ryder. He’s not demanding a World title shot or a Goldberg push, he just wants to be on Raw sometimes. He’d probably be happy being Santino’s wacky tag team partner and losing every week, but instead he’s restricted to Superstars (which Zack is smart enough to know is only one step away from future endeavors) with no escape in sight. If there were ever any plans for Zack Ryder he would have came out last night and got the big pop from the hometown crowd (with closeups on the signs) and then we could have seen where things went from there. That didn’t happen and now anyone who likes Zack needs to face reality and settle for Brett Matthews: Art of Wrestling podcast guest and Brett Matthews: Robbie E’s tag team partner.

06.14.11 at 5:50 pm

Thatsamare

Great job as always.

Watching that Ryder youtube video makes me hope that he will get a mega push in the not so distant future. That was amazing.

PS: Please show WWE raw youtube videos that are available to North American viewers. Thanks

06.14.11 at 9:45 pm

Patrick

The exra amazing thing about last night’s passion for Ryder is that they already got to see him beat Primo on Superstars. He had already gotten a decent match, huge face reaction, fans going nuts, the wokrs.

The fans just realize that Superstars is wrestling purgatory and that’s not enough.

06.14.11 at 10:06 pm

Cunning Linguist

@Vince–his name will be “The Scenario”.

Also, the understated “lol” after the Natalya best is the funniest thing I’ve seen all day. Awesome as always.

06.15.11 at 12:29 am

Rob

Wow. You are a terrible writer. Please kill yourself.

06.15.11 at 10:13 am

Brandon

@Rob – John? Is that you?

06.15.11 at 3:34 am

Jason

I’m late on the comment but (1) R-Truth owns and I never ever thought I would say that and (2) Rob, cram it.